MSEdgeRedirect kills some UWP apps

[lucaspestana]

Preflight Checklist

• Running microsoft-edge:https://google.com redirects successfully
• Microsoft Edge is selected in any "How do you want to open this?" box

Install Type

New Install

Install Mode

Service Mode

Steps to reproduce

1. Launch MSEdgeRedirect (I have set mine to run in Service Mode).
2. Attempt to open Calculator or Clock apps.
3. If they launch at all, attempt to switch to compact ("Keep on top") mode.
4. Also attempt to launch a .Eyes screen companion from the .Eyes Gallery app.

✔️ Expected Behavior

These UWP apps should spawn their own windows or mini windows as appropriate and expected.

❌ Actual Behavior

With MSEdgeRedirect activated, these apps will fail to load altogether, or in some other cases, cause a partial system crash, taking other programs down as well.

Illustrative image (taken from here): although the root cause and apps in question are different, this is exactly the effect I get when trying to open the apps I mentioned above.

Microsoft Windows version

Windows 10 22H2

MSEdgeRedirect version

0.8.0.0

Other Software

This took me forever to figure out but I've finally realized MSEdgeRedirect is the culprit!!

For some reason, MSEdgeRedirect will prevent some (not all) UWP apps from loading properly. In my experience, these are three affected apps (click the links to see screenshots):

1. Windows' own Calculator app and also its compact mode (Alt+Up);
2. Windows' own Clock app timers when in compact mode (Alt+Up);
3. .Eyes by Hereafter2 (executable: XEyes.exe), a cosmetic companion piece of software that spawns cartoony wide-eyed figures and even old MS Office Assistants, whose eyes will follow the cursor on the screen.

None of these three apps are explicitly opening any webpages that require interception by MSEdgeRedirect; yet alll of them, and some others, will crash immediately when MSEdgeRedirect is launched, or refused to launch properly when MSEdgeRedirect is already running.
The most glaring example is Calculator: its window frame will flash briefly on the screen for some moments, immediately closing itself. The screen companions of .Eyes (XEyes.exe) will fail to load and also take down the .Eyes Gallery app (XEyes.Gallery.Uwp.exe, which allows choosing an individual companion) along with it.
This issue doesn't affect all UWP apps, however. Other UWP apps work just fine, including some that make heavy use of web interface and pages (such as Microsoft Store, News and Weather apps, and other third party software), and no noticeable effects whatsoever on most UWP apps.
Most other software, such as Win32 applications (e.g., the classic Calculator app) don't seem, to be affected at all.
Perhaps other users might indicate other affected apps and programs, UWP or otherwise.

I'm very sorry it has taken me forever to figure out what was going on.
Now that I know, however, I implore you to fix it as soon as you can; without this fix, MSEdgeRedirect sadly becomes a very useful tool that I no longer has been a joy for daily usage.

[roboticsequalsfun]

Same with me. I don't know how to fix it. Calendar and some other windows apps won't open and just crash.

[lucaspestana]

A few quick non-solution updates:
So, I've realized a lot of other MSER users have complained about this; see these duplicate issues: #468, #428, #466, #459, #395…

NONE of the currently offered modes of the latest stable version (0.8.0.0) work for me, since I want to be able to continue using Edge as my mostly main browser, but with the option of being offered other installed browsers as well (I use Hurl as my browser chooser).

What seems to have worked for me is the "hidden" testing version, 0.8.1.0-dev -- that's the green button in under "Downloads" in README.
0.8.1.0 (even though it displays itself as "0.8.0.0") in Service Mode has an updated interface, and seems to no longer cause UWP apps to crash; my guess is @rcmaehl fixed the issue with SIHost (… did you?).

This solution is not quite ideal. When opening Microsoft's proprietary links from, say, the News & Interests taskbar widget, it won't go through MSER, and the news article will open straight in Edge, no interception, no questions asked.
Still, it's somewhat better than what I had with 0.8.0.0 in Service Mode, which would case many UWP apps to fail.

.

⚠ ISSUES I'VE NOTICED (SO FAR):

• MSER 0.8.1.0 has a slightly different icon (lighter blue, smaller black arrows inside) compared to 0.8.0.0.
• Trying to open MSER Settings by right-clicking the tray icon causes Edge (msedge.exe) to abruptly close/crash.
• It seems Edge may also be closed / crash suddenly when MSER is just running in Service Mode.
• Some tabs that contained already loaded pages now display empty contents (in my case, a fully grey background, which happens to be my accent color), requiring a Refresh (Ctrl+R or F5) to reload properly; they may become blank again. I couldn't figure out what sequence of events causes this.

UNFORTUNATELY, these are deal-breakers for me, even more so than the already serious conflict with SIHost and UWP apps.
I guess I'm back to tolerating some Microsoft links getting opened with Edge, as Bill Gates intended.
I really hope those issues (and others) get fixed in the next release as soon as possible, pretty please!!

[moriel5]

Not fully related, however I was wondering whether a Windows 11 install that has had Edge removed (via official means, which seems to be available in my country, despite not being part of the EU) could have apps that rely upon Edge installed for OneAuth functionality, such as the new Outlook app, if MSEdgeRedirect is installed and configured to redirect the calls to the default browser, such as Firefox or Floorp?